The past is a foreign country
by rach1803
Summary: What if Nikki wanting to help Josh had nothing to do with Tom. Had nothing to do with the fact she is Josh's teacher. What if she knew what it was like dealing with Schizophrenia?
1. Chapter 1

**So, I was watching last nights WR, it was awesome! But I couldnt help that think maybe there was more to Nikki's involvement than just wanting to help. I love the character so will just see what the response is to this as to whether I continue it :-)**

**My first WR FF!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Waterloo Road.**

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><p>Nikki put her head in her hands. Sat alone in her classroom. Alone with her thoughts. She sighed as she reflected on the day's events, she couldn't help but feel she could have done more. An image of Josh sat in the back of the ambulance; tear stained face and scared eyes drifted into her mind. She shook her head slowly.<p>

She had tried to help him, and Tom. She wanted to make it easier for them to adapt, for them to cope. But they thought she didn't understand, that she didn't know what they were going through, well Tom did anyway. Nikki knew Josh didn't. He didn't care. He was too distracted by the voices that taunted him.

She had felt so hopeless in the exam, she had seen him. Twitching, scratching his arm to pieces. She had seen him, recognised the signs, known something was wrong. But she couldn't help, she couldn't act. It was too painful. It brought back her memories. Nikki lifted her head from her hands slowly, she breathed deeply as she shut her eyes.

She had watched as he shifted in his seat, watched as he crouched to the floor, afraid, no terrified. The voices taunting him, torturing his mind. She had watched him flinch away as Michael and Tom tried to help him. She had heard him yell, they shouldn't touch him. He felt trapped. Alone. She saw the hurt on Tom's face. The pain as he watched his son tear himself apart, tormented by his own mind.

She had watched as he stormed from the room, his classmates watching in confusion, they didn't understand, they didn't know. She followed Tom and Michael. She remembered Josh's cries that he was infected, contagious, tainted. She felt the guilt, that dam video project. She heard Lauren leave the exam; explain Josh hadn't been taking his medication. Nikki groaned inwardly, she should have known, should have seen the signs. This had happened to her before.

She called an ambulance, her voice shook slightly as she remembered the last time she had made this call. Tom would hate her, and she knew it. But it was for the best, she knew that too. Josh needed help. He needed it before it was too late, before he did something really stupid. Nikki knew what that was like too, she knew the loss that Tom would feel if Josh listened to the voices. If he gave in to them.

Nikki rubbed her eyes violently, trying to push the images away. She opened the top draw of her desk. She smiled sadly, looking at the picture of the girl. The girl with dark hair and light blue eyes. The girl beamed up at her, totally unaware, totally innocent. Nikki felt her smile fade; she couldn't look at her anymore. The eyes seemed to bore into her. Making her remember, making her feel the guilt that she would always have.

Nikki put the picture carefully back into the draw, no point in wasting away in the past. She decided to visit Tom, he would need support right now, and Nikki knew it. Whether he liked it or not, Nikki decided, she was going to try to help.

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><p><strong>So let me know in a review if I should continue this :-)<strong>

**Rach**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ah! Okay so I got a really awesome response from the first chapter (Thank you, thank you, thank you!)**

**So I thought it would only be fair to upload a new little chapter that I had already written. **

**Again let me know if this is still okay and whether I should keep writing.**

**Just for the record, I am not an expert in mental illness at all, so it may not be entirely accurate in the medical aspect of things, I only know what I have researched.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Waterloo Road.**

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><p>Nikki breathed out slowly. She walked down the path slowly. She felt bad for leaving Tom. Guilty even, an emotion she was used too. She had wanted to stay with him, offer support, friendship, to listen and to talk. Nikki knew he would need someone in the near future, but for now, she knew he needed to be on his own. Needed to think about what he was going to do know. How he can help his son.<p>

Nikki got into her car, shut the door and paused. She put her head back on the seat. She hadn't told Tom, she had wanted too. But she couldn't. She rubbed her eyes and started the ignition. Pulling away from the house, reflecting on her conversation.

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><p>"Sedated." Tom had said when she asked how Josh was, "There gonna keep him in for a couple of weeks."<p>

Tom looked different. Like a man who had aged twenty years, his eyes where dull and his voice lined with despair. A feeling Nikki knew well. She knew that Josh had been in a bad way, but sedating him. She felt her heart drop, she knew that wasn't good.

"I wanted to stay with him; they said there wasn't any point." Nikki looked down at her scarf. She couldn't look into his eyes. She couldn't see his pain.

"Yeah." She said quietly, she knew there was no point in him sitting at the hospital, experience had taught her that there wasn't any point. The person that was been visited didn't know they had company, and the person who was the company didn't feel any less hopeless. They felt more if anything. Nikki could hear a TV in the next room.

"Just watching this." tom walked into the living room and Nikki followed.

"_Life was so simple…so clear." _

Tom stopped staring at his son on the TV; Nikki hung back in the doorway. Tom shook his head slightly.

"He's in a bad way. How did I get it so wrong?" Tom turned back to the TV screen, staring at his son. He blamed himself. He felt like he failed his son.

"It's not your fault Tom." Nikki said honestly. She felt like a hypocrite. How many times had she blamed herself? Punished and hated herself, her actions and her decisions. Yet, here she was telling someone the same things that people had told her. The same load of crap, she had thought at the time, but it was the truth. It wasn't Tom's fault. Even if he didn't believe it. Tom turned his head to face her.

"Isn't it?" He stared at her, his blue eyes empty of everything but pain and depression. People forgot that mental illness didn't just affect those who had it; it affected all those around them. Those who cared. Tom was proof of that. Tom sat down on the sofa.

"I knew in my gut that something wasn't right." He opened his hands, trying to get her to see. "I let it go, I backed off. I should have been right on it" He stared at the screen emptily.

"_So clear."_

"You weren't to know." Nikki stared down at him; she could hear the emotion in her voice. She hated it but he had to see. Tom really was blaming himself, it wasn't his fault. Tom was in denial.

"Yeah well I should of." Tom swallowed. Nikki knew he was struggling. She sat down next to him. She could almost hear his mind working. Thinking of all the things he could have done. All the mistakes he had made. How he could have changed things.

"Instead of sorting out stupid exams." Tom continued, still staring at Josh. "My boy needed me." Nikki could feel his pain. She put her arm around him. The man needed some comfort. Or else he would break.

"You're a great dad." She said looking at him, as Tom stared on at the screen. "Okay, everyone knows it. Josh knows it too." The screen broke, fuzzing as the scene changed. "We just need to get him better. And we will." Nikki meant it. They would get him better. But to do that Josh would need his dad; Nikki needed to get through to him. Tom looked down, nodding slightly.

"_Death and fear everywhere."_

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><p><strong>Hope it was okay!<strong>

**Reviews all ways appreciated!**

**Rach x**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey!**

**It's been forever I know, sorry! Been really busy but hopefully will be able to update more now its summer :-P**

**Thanks for the responses to this story really appreciate it :-)**

**Please R&R!**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own Waterloo Road**

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><p>Nikki had been walking to her car; she needed to get her stuff ready for the cadet march. She knew it would do this place good. Not like that mentor system that <em>Vanessa <em>had been talking about, Vanessa and her books. A good book is all anyone really needs. This woman didn't have a clue. Nikki sighed.

It was then that she could smell it. Weed. It made her feel sick. Turning the corner she saw two boys, one with dark curly hair in the school uniform, another in grey trousers and a jacket with short brown hair.

"I can smell that from here." She yelled the boys turned panic etching across their features. They started to run, Nikki followed.

"Stay right where you are!" she sprinted to the school gates, but they got away. Nikki inwardly cursed herself. Brushing her hair out of her eyes, she made a note of the boy in uniform. She would remember him. She would catch hold of him later. 

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><p>Nikki opened her front door, shaking herself from her thoughts. That had been the first time she had seen Josh Stevenson and he had defiantly not made the right first impression. Nor had he impressed her the next time she saw him, stoned and leaning on a wall. She remembered how her army instincts took over, they were impossible to forget. She remembered dragging him into the changing rooms and pouring the cold water over his head, ignoring his complaints. The shower and the march had done him good, he was looking better. Then there had been the boy in the grey again, his dealer, she had guessed. He had been with another girl and Josh looked upset, used. Ah, that kind of a dealer. The one that made everyone around them feel special, their special customer, like they're the only one.<p>

Nikki dumped the pile of books on the coffee table and sat on the sofa; putting her head in her hands again she remembered the conversation she had, had with Josh, when she had really gotten to know him. She listened as he told her about Grady, how he had been used by him. She told him it wasn't about Grady, but him trying to blot out his problems. She asked him again.

"So, honestly, how much are you smoking?" She looked at him, he looked at her.

"A bit." He shrugged; she raised her eyebrows he paused. "A lot... Too much." Nikki nodded.

"Yeah." She stopped walking, relieved that he finally accepted he had a problem. "It's time to stop blaming everyone else and start taking some responsibility, cause I'm not always gonna be here to sober you up." He sighed slightly.

"What's gonna happen when we get back?" the boy looked nervous, Nikki didn't blame him. On drugs with his Dad as a deputy head teacher, must be tough. Nikki cast her eyes down, and then looked him in the eye. She wasn't going to lie to him, wasn't going to coat him in cotton wool. That wasn't her style.

"I think you already know the answer to that." She put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on." 

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><p>Nikki ran her fingers through her hair, that had been the moment, that was when she got to see the real Josh, not the stoned class idiot, the stoner, no she saw the real boy. That was what he really was, a boy who had made a mistake. Now she saw just what an impact that mistake had meant for Josh, it may have caused him to develop schizophrenia, one mistake and that was the repercussion. Nikki shook her head, life was unfair.<p>

She sighed and lifted her head slowly, her eyes meeting with the sparkling blue of a girl who was so alive. So young and alive. 

Yes, life was so unfair. 

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><p><strong>Until the next time!<strong>

**Rach**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry, sorry, sorry,sorry, sorry...**

**I know its been forever, just been seriously busy, life getting in the way again.**

**Anyways here's the next chapter, I'm not totally happy with it but its been a while so will have to do. I'm also going to be trying to make the chapters longer.**

**Might be a while before I upload again because of exams but once there done hopefully I'll get back into uploading.**

**Thank you to anyone still reading, following and reviewing this story, means a lot and I like to know what you think!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Waterloo Road.**

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><p>"<em>Catch me if you can!" Nikki sighed at the girl running away from her; honestly sometimes she behaved exactly like a child.<em>

"_Liv wait up." Nikki broke into a run chasing after her as the girl ran into the trees, dark hair whipping behind her, her laugh ringing in her ears._

_Nikki ducked slightly as she entered the wood, scanning for the fifteen year old. She could hear her giggling, a smile spread on Nikki's face she was close. She continued walking, slowly pushing the trees away from her face._

"_Liv where are you?" Nikki called frowning slightly annoyance seeping into her tone as she grabbed a tree for support whilst stumbling over the root of another. She was tired now and bored of chasing the girl. The sun was setting slowly overhead casting the wood in an amber haze._

_That was when she noticed the laughing had stopped._

Nikki shook herself slightly as the bell cut through her memories. The end of another day.

She watched as kids charged past the classroom talking, yelling, and laughing. Exams where over and they had nothing to worry about, not a care. The way kids should be, Nikki thought, she sighed as she opened the draw; her eyes finding the other pair that where identical to her own. Not all kids were.

She closed her eyes and ran her fingers through her hair, she'd been trying to do some marking when that memory drifted into her mind but now it was there it refused to be moved. That was the first time she noticed something odd about Olivia, something not quite right. When she'd found her finally in the middle of the clearing the girl had jumped span round with wide eyes, tears on her cheeks. Nikki had imagined the worst that someone had hurt her, but no one was there and the girl was confused at her own reaction, she didn't know why but she had said someone was there. Following, and when Nikki had tried to explain it was her she shook her head wildly, no, no it was someone else.

Nikki had tried to put it down to the over imaginative mind that the girl had always possessed and, after some talking to Olivia agreed too, shaking her head at her own behaviour. Nikki remembered her own words.

_That mind of yours will cause trouble for you one day you know._

It was that incident that started it all for Nikki, she had tried to ignore it and would have let it go, if it hadn't been for the other incidents; crying at jokes, jumping and twitching all the time, Nikki had laughed at her at first, playfully teasing, then they became more serious. Olivia had always been sociable and outgoing, but now she locked herself away in her room and barely spoke, the jumpiness escalated, round about the time the voices started. The voices in her head.

Then there was the fire….

Nikki shook her head; she didn't want to think about it, she couldn't think about it. She couldn't think about what had happened afterwards either, it hurt. The pain, the guilt. It was her burden. It was her fault, all her fault.

She had failed her, broken her promise.

Nikki opened her eyes as tears fell onto her mark book. She wiped them from her face, she didn't want to remember it, didn't want to cry about it.

She didn't deserve to.

That head of yours will cause trouble


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